Unisa online - Promoting health and dignity at the AIDS Candlelight Memorial

Prof Jimmie Earl Perry, United Nations Goodwill Ambassador to South Africa and Director of the Africa Centre for HIV & AIDS at Stellenbosch University

Tens of thousands of people worldwide who are seeking to raise awareness about HIV will be participating in the International AIDS Candlelight Memorial this year. The memorial event serves as a community mobilisation campaign to raise social consciousness about HIV and AIDS; it is only fitting then that the theme for this year’s event is “Promoting health and dignity together”. The 29th Annual International AIDS Candlelight Memorial will be held at Unisa’s Muckleneuk Campus on Friday 18 May 2012.  Click here for the invitation.

Prof Jimmie Earl Perry, United Nations Goodwill Ambassador to South Africa and Director of the Africa Centre for HIV & AIDS at Stellenbosch University, will be the guest of honour at the event. In light of HIV and AIDS awareness, a performance entitled ‘Lucky, the hero’, which promises to be full of facts, humour and emotional impact, will be staged by the Africa Centre for HIV/AIDS Management: University of Stellenbosch. Free confidential HIV counselling and testing services will also be available at the event.

The annual campaign has been dubbed as “the oldest grassroots movement against HIV/AIDS”, and is commemorated across the world on the third Sunday of May every year, led by more than 1 000 Candlelight Coordinators who host memorials for their communities in over 100 countries.  The campaign was initiated and has been managed by the Global Health Council for the past 26 years until 2010. Management and coordination of the campaign has since been handed over to the Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP+) with effect from 2011. 

The campaign seeks to promote four key Advocacy Priorities, namely:

• reducing stigma and discrimination
• ensuring access to treatment, prevention and care
• increasing resources for HIV & AIDS, Malaria, TB, and other related issues
• promoting greater involvement by affected communities

For more information about the 29th Annual International AIDS Candlelight Memorial at Unisa, contact Vicky Malefo (vmalefo@unisa.ac.za) or Irene Mohasoa (mohasip@unisa.ac.za).

*Information for this story was sourced from the official International AIDS Candlelight Memorial website (www.candlelightmemorial.org) and the Africa Centre for HIV/AIDS Management: University of Stellenbosch website (http://www.aidscentre.sun.ac.za)